A phenomenology of crack abuse

The aim of this dissertation is to identify, describe, and explain the common experiences defining the crack abuser's life-world. Its method is phenomenological. Using basic cybernetic premises, a neurophysiologically oriented phenomenological framework concerning the constitution of thoughts, memories, and perceptions is first written. The framework is designed to hypothetically represent the neuropathology of crack abuse within a perspective that prescinds and describes the constitution, flow, and interdependence of experience. After the framework is written, the dissertation outlines the neuro-psychopharmacology of crack abuse and delimits crack abusers as a specific group within the more general population of cocaine users. It then represents the neuropathology of crack abuse within its phenomenological framework and uses the first-person accounts of forty-two crack dependents to actualize a phenomenological sketch of the crack abuser's life-world. The ethnographies afford the possibility of writing a “thick” description of the crack abuser's daily life—one that communicates the substance, order, and subjective and cultural dimensions of the dependent's defining experiences. ^ The dissertation's goals are successfully realized. The framework written and the ethnographies recorded and transcribed, the dissertation is able to identify, describe, and to a certain extent explain some of the common experiences defining the crack abusers life-world. The dissertation concludes that the crack abuser's life-world is organized around three primary and four secondary experiences. His primary experiences include: (1) an almost complete, yet fleeting, satisfaction of the ego's innate insufficiency and sublime, erotic-like stimulation of its core, (2) a fundamental inclination and expansion of the uniquely oriented euphoria-dysphoria dynamic that vivifies and orients the flow of consciousness, and (3) a change in the ego's innate structure. His secondary experiences include: (a) a characteristic aiming of projects, actions, and conduct toward the procurement and consumption of crack, (b) a denigration in the hold of legitimations and institutionalizations on the thematic field, (c) a strict alignment and a contraction in the scope of logical types pointing to the salient experiences within the stock of knowledge, and (d) for some crack abusers, ontological insecurity, despair, and exhaustion. ^

Physical dynamic simulation of shipboard power system components in a distributed computational environment

Shipboard power systems have different characteristics than the utility power systems. In the Shipboard power system it is crucial that the systems and equipment work at their peak performance levels. One of the most demanding aspects for simulations of the Shipboard Power Systems is to connect the device under test to a real-time simulated dynamic equivalent and in an environment with actual hardware in the Loop (HIL). The real time simulations can be achieved by using multi-distributed modeling concept, in which the global system model is distributed over several processors through a communication link. The advantage of this approach is that it permits the gradual change from pure simulation to actual application. In order to perform system studies in such an environment physical phase variable models of different components of the shipboard power system were developed using operational parameters obtained from finite element (FE) analysis. These models were developed for two types of studies low and high frequency studies. Low frequency studies are used to examine the shipboard power systems behavior under load switching, and faults. High-frequency studies were used to predict abnormal conditions due to overvoltage, and components harmonic behavior. Different experiments were conducted to validate the developed models. The Simulation and experiment results show excellent agreement. The shipboard power systems components behavior under internal faults was investigated using FE analysis. This developed technique is very curial in the Shipboard power systems faults detection due to the lack of comprehensive fault test databases. A wavelet based methodology for feature extraction of the shipboard power systems current signals was developed for harmonic and fault diagnosis studies. This modeling methodology can be utilized to evaluate and predicate the NPS components future behavior in the design stage which will reduce the development cycles, cut overall cost, prevent failures, and test each subsystem exhaustively before integrating it into the system.

Abstractions to support dynamic adaptation of communication frameworks for user-centric communication

The convergence of data, audio and video on IP networks is changing the way individuals, groups and organizations communicate. This diversity of communication media presents opportunities for creating synergistic collaborative communications. This form of collaborative communication is however not without its challenges. The increasing number of communication service providers coupled with a combinatorial mix of offered services, varying Quality-of-Service and oscillating pricing of services increases the complexity for the user to manage and maintain ‘always best’ priced or performance services. Consumers have to manually manage and adapt their communication in line with differences in services across devices, networks and media while ensuring that the usage remain consistent with their intended goals. This dissertation proposes a novel user-centric approach to address this problem. The proposed approach aims to reduce the aforementioned complexity to the user by (1) providing high-level abstractions and a policy based methodology for automated selection of the communication services guided by high-level user policies and (2) providing services through the seamless integration of multiple communication service providers and providing an extensible framework to support the integration of multiple communication service providers. The approach was implemented in the Communication Virtual Machine (CVM), a model-driven technology for realizing communication applications. The CVM includes the Network Communication Broker, the layer responsible for providing a network-independent API to the upper layers of CVM. The initial prototype for the NCB supported only a single communication framework which limited the number, quality and types of services available. Experimental evaluation of the approach show the additional overhead of the approach is minimal compared to the individual communication services frameworks. Additionally the automated approach proposed out performed the individual communication services frameworks for cross framework switching.

Physical dynamic simulation of shipboard power system components in a distributed computational environment

Shipboard power systems have different characteristics than the utility power systems. In the Shipboard power system it is crucial that the systems and equipment work at their peak performance levels. One of the most demanding aspects for simulations of the Shipboard Power Systems is to connect the device under test to a real-time simulated dynamic equivalent and in an environment with actual hardware in the Loop (HIL). The real time simulations can be achieved by using multi-distributed modeling concept, in which the global system model is distributed over several processors through a communication link. The advantage of this approach is that it permits the gradual change from pure simulation to actual application. In order to perform system studies in such an environment physical phase variable models of different components of the shipboard power system were developed using operational parameters obtained from finite element (FE) analysis. These models were developed for two types of studies low and high frequency studies. Low frequency studies are used to examine the shipboard power systems behavior under load switching, and faults. High-frequency studies were used to predict abnormal conditions due to overvoltage, and components harmonic behavior. Different experiments were conducted to validate the developed models. The Simulation and experiment results show excellent agreement. The shipboard power systems components behavior under internal faults was investigated using FE analysis. This developed technique is very curial in the Shipboard power systems faults detection due to the lack of comprehensive fault test databases. A wavelet based methodology for feature extraction of the shipboard power systems current signals was developed for harmonic and fault diagnosis studies. This modeling methodology can be utilized to evaluate and predicate the NPS components future behavior in the design stage which will reduce the development cycles, cut overall cost, prevent failures, and test each subsystem exhaustively before integrating it into the system.